This week’s message at Central was on John 3:9 – 10. It is one of my favorite Scriptures because it ends up saying in I John 3:10 – “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” The purpose of the book that we wrote was to emphasize to Christians that God wants us to have a rich and satisfying life. We have a tremendous advantage as believers if we comply with the teachings of Christ. Yet, many Christians feel that their life has been anything but rich and satisfying. We respond by saying that there are two ways to live. We can live as the world lives and accept the consequences that the world receives; or, we can live as the Bible teaches and be rich and have a pleasant life. Therefore, many Christians who live as the world lives probably will not have a rich and satisfying life. There are always exceptions.

Let’s look at John 10:7 – 10 – “So he explained it to them: ‘I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.’”

During the time of Jesus most everyone understood the role of a shepherd. Sometimes shepherds would bring their flocks into town. They would leave them with a person who had large holding pens and they would be placed in pens with other shepherd’s sheep. Then the shepherds would go and bath, get what supplies they needed before going back to pasture. When they went back to get their sheep they would open the gate and the shepherd would call out their names and they would come and follow him.

Jesus uses another illustration. He states He is the gate and those who come through Him will be saved. They then will be able to come and go freely and will find good pastures. When a person could come and go at will means that they were living at a peaceful time or they were at peace with themselves. There were forces of law and order that allowed them to have perfect security. We interpret this to also mean that once we become a Christian we feel a new sense of safety and security in our lives. Jesus being the gate is the one who has promised that this will happen. This is where we must accept our trust in God. But trust most often comes only when we become spiritually mature. To diminish negative fear requires putting our lives in the hands of God as the Apostle Paul did as he illustrated in the problems he went through and yet, lived with joy, peace and love in his life.

At this point we should probably define what Jesus may have meant by rich and satisfying life. Do we live realizing that our Father is the richest person in the universe and He says He will meet our needs? Do we live with the assurance that one day we will live eternally in the most luxurious cities that ever existed? Again, how are we living today? Do we live by Satan’s enticements or by the principles Christ taught? When the shepherd comes to get his sheep and calls out; who will we follow? Do we follow those who come to deceive us with the offers of the world? Or, do we listen only to the One our God has sent to be our shepherd?

Jesus goes on in Scripture to contrast the difference between a good and faithful shepherd vs. the unfaithful shepherd. The faithful shepherd will lay down his life and will accept any risk to protect his sheep. King David, as a shepherd, fought lion and bear to protect his flock. The unfaithful shepherd will run at the sight of any risk of injury. We must ask: who is our shepherd? Are we following the deceivers in life or the only true shepherd Jesus Christ? If we live as the world lives we are following the deceivers. If we say: “No we really cannot afford a new car at this time”, we probably are being a better steward of our money. The less debt a person accumulates the better chance they have of sleeping at night. Can we distinguish between what our needs really are and what our “wants” are?

Do you expect as a Christian to have a rich and satisfying life? Christ says it is there for you! If you consider rich by the standards of those living in parts of Africa and Asia you may already be rich. If you are not living a satisfying life, who is your shepherd? Is it the robbers and thieves who Jesus described (Satan) to whom you are listening? Why don’t more Christians understand the advantages that God promises if they will only live by His commands? We start by accepting the purpose for which God placed us on this earth and follow the direction the Holy Spirit leads us. (See previous blogs – Our purpose in life – God has a plan for you).

For many years I have held a life & health insurance license but no longer sell insurance. I still receive tons of information. The life expectancy of the average American is 78.1 years. Those living on the island of Okinawa off the coast of Japan, 50 out of every 100,000 live to reach the age of 100. In the U.S. only 20 out of 100,000 live to be centenarians.

It is estimated that how long we live, 25% depend on our genes and the other 75% depends upon the decisions we make daily. Should we make the right choices, our chances of living another 10 to 20 years longer are enhanced greatly. The problem most every one of us has concerning how long we live is not important until we reach the age of 50. By then, the life we have lived could subtract 10 to 20 years.

Most Americans think they are immortal until about 50 and then they realize they had better start taking better care of themselves. Therefore, what are we told to do from the very beginning?

Exercise: We should do a minimum of 30 minutes a day of exercise. We do not need to run marathons or become body builders. The more active we are the greater our chance of having healthy bodies.

Weight control: It is most difficult to stay on a regular diet of the right kind of foods. Those who live the longest eat a lot of whole grains, vegetables, fruits and very little meat. Seventh-day Adventists are told to eat nuts in place of junk food. Statistics show they live longer than the average American.

Reduce stress: Working many years for a large corporation my life seemed to be quite stressful. However, I have later learned it wasn’t necessary. The more mature I became spiritually, the more I learned to trust God and the greater I realized that the Holy Spirit was there to help me; my life has become stress-free. The only time I feel the slightest stress is sometimes driving back and forth to work. Lots of crazy drivers!

Statistics show that stress can be a “killer”. It produces stress hormones that can cause inflammation throughout the body.

Make family life rewarding: I previously blogged: “The love that holds marriages together – forever”. Since our children left home I have had no stress in our marriage. It is almost impossible to raise children without having stressful times. But a lot of it was a result of our parenting. Before we had children they did not have any psychology books on how to rear a child. Had I better understood the Bible I would have prayed as I wrote in the previous blog: “Teach us to pray”. When raising children, we should go to the Bible for direction first instead of when all else fails.

Remember: for every action there is a re-action. Every time we do something or make a statement there are consequences. If we are following God’s “will” the consequence will be a blessing. If we disobey, the consequences may be unfavorable. Be careful how we treat our families. We can create positive results just as easily as we can cause negative consequences.

The importance of being spiritual: Finally, the chance of living to 100, according to statistics, improves with one’s faith in God. Those who are devoted in their relationship with God and do the above mentioned recommendations, normally live longer. Yet, many Christians do not study the Bible realizing that God is writing personally to every one of us. He is telling us how much He loves us and that He wants what is best for us. He has given us a manual for living and yet we often ignore it. If we read carefully we can become better off financially and live healthier lives.

Too often we read the Bible believing that God is going to “zap us” if we do anything wrong. So we read wondering what we shouldn’t be doing. On average, those having reached spiritual maturity and love God with all of their might and love others have a much better chance of lasting longer.

We have heard: we are wired differently. What does that mean? Each one of us does things just a little more unusual than someone else. In fact, some of us are down-right peculiar. What makes us different? We were created with different temperaments.

In 1984, our church had two services on Sunday. Many Sunday evenings we would have a social after the evening service. There was no place large enough to hold these social gatherings. We had room for about 25 in the pre-school building. There may have been as many as 100 attending these get-together times. I started pushing for adding on to the pre-school. We needed a room to provide for at least 200. Another elder and his wife, my wife and I were put in charge of raising money. How do you do that? It was suggested that we bring in an author who would like to market their book and would come fairly cheaply. We would sell tickets and anything raised above the cost of bringing in a speaker would go toward the construction. We chose Florence Littauer, the author of Personality Plus. Her lecture and her book have made a tremendous difference in our family and how we accept each other. Later, I found a book entitled: “Spirit Controlled Temperaments” by Tim Lahaye. His book re-enforced the importance of learning one’s temperaments.

Hippocrates over 2400 years ago divided people into four basic categories which he named Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy and Phlegmatic. Each temperament has both strengths and weaknesses. They become a part of our nature throughout life. Even though each individual temperament includes both strengths and weaknesses they are not always evenly balanced. It is quite possible for two people with identical temperaments to be as dissimilar as a banana and an onion if one of them possesses the strengths of this temperament and the other has its weaknesses. Negative or positive traits are often developed in childhood where one child grows up in a positive environment where parents are encouragers and another child grows up in a negative environment where parents are criticizers.

Ms. Littauer provided a test that would determine what a person’s temperament was. Not only did our family take this test but I had all of my supervisors at work do the same. I provided what the strengths and weaknesses were of each temperament. I then encouraged and challenged each of us to identify and overcome our natural weaknesses and enhance our natural strengths. It was valuable to know why some are extroverts and some are introverts. We then realized that youngsters and adults most often are doing the best they can with what they have to work with. Why is Johnny so different from Jimmy? Why does one supervisor build a team that has fun? Whereas, another supervisor may manage a team that doesn’t work well together. Why is it some people’s behavior is offensive or strange? Once we understand what their weaknesses are we are more likely to respond with a measure of understanding and tolerance up to a point. It is a must that parents understand why children say or do what they do.

If we have an aggressive child it is unfair to compare that child to a sibling who has a passive temperament. Each must be treated differently. In my study of temperaments I believe that the 12 sons of Jacob each had a different make up of temperaments. Each had a primary and a secondary temperament unlike their brothers. Jacob had 12 different personalities to deal with.

When our grandchildren grew to the age of four we were able to fairly well determine their primary and secondary temperaments. When one would do something outlandish we would all say: what would you expect from a sanguine? If one was controlling and always wanted their own way, we would just say: what would you expect from a Choleric? That doesn’t excuse a parent from disciplining children but it does help them to understand where their child is coming from.

My wife and three of our children are perfectionists and I am not. When my wife vacuums she moves every chair and does a thorough job. When I vacuum I hit the spots that are travelled the most. She would say: “If you are not going to do it right do not do it at all.” I have learned to say: “Would you like me to hit the high places until you have time to do a really good job?” If she says yes, then I do my normal job without criticism.

There are times when being a perfectionist is a must. I recently read an article by a preacher that was giving all kinds of statistics. In one illustration he said that the stock market went from a high of 14000 to a low of 6000. That wasn’t at all correct. The Dow Jones Average, not the stock market, went from a high of 14,165 to a low of 6,547. My reaction was: how much of the other statistics do I believe? I realize every time I read an article by him he may not always be giving me the true facts. However, generally he is worth reading because he really knows his Bible. It’s the statistics that he’s weak on.

Once you learn what your temperaments are, you should pray that the Holy Spirit would work on weaknesses and help you build your strengths.

There are times when I wake up at 2:00 or 3:00 and an idea for a blog comes to my mind. This is one of those mornings. As a young man in college I had a number of blessings occur yet, did not recognize them as blessings. I either thought I was very lucky or just took it for granted that special things just happen in life. I had been a Christian for approximately three years and had just been married. It seemed life could not have been any better.

This morning, being Veterans Day, as I was thinking about all of the special things that took place in my early walk with Christ, I was led to wonder how many people receive God’s blessing and dismiss it as if nothing special really took place. Or, we just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Why at those times was I not conscience of the Holy Spirit being constantly active in my live? Probably because I was not aware or I had not been taught of the power of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life. This morning as I was in bed with these thoughts being raised it was like, why not write about the many times you did not recognize a blessing because you did not expect to be blessed?

There was a possibility that I would be married a year or two after graduating from high school. Upon graduation, jobs were hard to find. A very close friend suggested we join the Navy. I was not at all interested. After six weeks of looking for work and not finding anything I agreed to join. I was accepted and for medical reasons he was rejected. Enlisting in the Navy turned out to be a positive fluke. Going overseas for three years broke off my relationship with a girl I had dated for almost a year. However, after four years of serving I was eligible for four years of college paid by the government.

When I wasn’t playing basketball or baseball I always could find work and never encountered a financial problem. After we were married, my wife was asked to be head resident of a girl’s dorm. We received free room and board. My senior year I was asked to coach at a Christian high school on campus. All of my tuition was free. We received free room and board, my wife was the high school secretary, my education was free and the government was paying me money to go to school. In the summer I was night supervisor for Birds’ Eye frozen foods. After my senior year I was audited by the IRS and had to prove that I had actually given what I claimed to the church. How could we have not recognized how God was blessing us? I look back now and wonder how could I have been so unaware of what God was doing in our lives.

It was fortunate that we had saved prior to joining Montgomery Ward’s management training program on $85 a week or we could not have made it financially. I worked in nine stores and was transferred eight times. Everywhere we went we were active in the church. By now we were starting to realize how God was blessing us. My first store as a store manager was Nampa, Idaho where my wife and I attended college. We knew hundreds of people and the store became very successful compared to what it had been doing. Later we were transferred to Kalispell, Montana. After three years a rumor had it that I was going to Klamath Falls, Oregon. It was a store that had been opened two years and was losing considerable amounts of money. The gossip was that it was a store that no one could make profitable. Anyone taking that job could lose his job. If they offer me a certain amount I will know that is where God wants us to go otherwise I will turn it down. When they offered the job to me and said they would pay me much more than I had expected I believed I should accept. I told my wife that they must be building a church in Klamath Falls. With what they offered we will be able to support it financially. The first Sunday we walked into the Klamath Falls church, there was a huge thermometer indicating how much had been pledged for the new church building. We looked at each other and said, “This is where God wants us”. After four and a half years it became one of Ward’s more profitable stores.

It wasn’t until I became an elder in 1983 that I witnessed so many supernatural events take place. Watching Central Christian Church grow and seeing thousands converted and baptized is when we just started calling everything: “It’s a God thing”. As I observe our church’s message going world-wide I look back and wonder why it took me so long to recognize what God does in our lives almost daily. I guess if you are not expecting to be blessed, when you are, you may fail to recognize it. The point of this story is to look every day for what the Holy Spirit is doing in your life. It will build your faith and trust. You will become a more positive person and you will certainly overcome the times you feel so unworthy.